Iran executes opposition figure Ruhollah Zam after he was implicated in anti-government protests

Mr Zam is one of several people to have been put on death row over participation or links to protests that rocked Iran between 2017 and 2019.

Iran on Saturday executed Ruhollah Zam, a former opposition figure who had lived in exile in France and was implicated in anti-government protests, days after his sentence was upheld.

State television said the "counter-revolutionary" was hanged in the morning after the supreme court upheld his sentence due to "the severity of the crimes" committed against the Islamic republic.

Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili had on Tuesday said Mr Zam's sentence was upheld by the supreme court "more than a month ago".

London-based rights group Amnesty International, in a statement after his verdict was confirmed, described Mr Zam as a "journalist and dissident".

It said the confirmation marked "a shocking escalation in the use of the death penalty as a weapon of repression."

Iran's Revolutionary Guards announced the arrest of Mr Zam in October 2019, claiming he had been "directed by France's intelligence service".

State television said he was "under the protection of several countries' intelligence services."

The official IRNA news agency said he was also convicted of espionage for France and an unnamed country in the region, cooperating with the "hostile government of America", acting against "the country's security", insulting the "sanctity of Islam" and instigating violence during the 2017 protests.

At least 25 people were killed during the unrest in December 2017 and January 2018 that was sparked by economic hardship.

Mr Zam, who was granted political asylum in France and reportedly lived in Paris, ran a channel on the Telegram messaging app called Amadnews.

Telegram shut down the channel after Iran demanded it remove the account for inciting an "armed uprising".

'Corruption on earth'

Mr Zam was charged with "corruption on earth" - one of the most serious offences under Iranian law - and sentenced to death in June.

State television aired an "interview" with him in July, in which he appears as saying he believed in reformism until he was detained in 2009 during protests against the disputed re-election of ultra-conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He also denied having instigated violence through his Telegram channel.

Amnesty has repeatedly called on Iran to stop broadcasting videos of "confessions" by suspects, saying they "violate the defendants' rights".

Mr Zam is one of several people to have been put on death row over participation or links to protests that rocked Iran between 2017 and 2019.

Navid Afkari, a 27-year-old wrestler, was executed at a prison in the southern city of Shiraz in September.

The judiciary said he had been found guilty of "voluntary homicide" for stabbing to death a government employee in August 2018.

Shiraz and several other urban centres across Iran had been the scene of anti-government protests and demonstrations at the time over economic and social hardship.

Three young men were also sentenced to death over links to deadly 2019 protests, but Iran's supreme court said last week that it would retry them over a request by their defence team.

Their sentences were initially upheld by a tribunal over evidence the judiciary said was found on their phones of them setting alight banks, buses and public buildings during the wave of anti-government protests.

Amnesty International said Iran executed at least 251 people last year, the world's second highest toll after China.

Source: Agence France-Presse, SBS, Staff, December 12, 2020

Execution of Dissident Journalist Ruhollah Zam is a Crime and Iran Must be Held Accountable

Iran Human Rights ((HR); December 12, 2020: Ruhollah Zam, the director of the AmadNews Telegram channel, was executed in an unknown location on charges of "corruption on earth" early this morning.

Iran Human Rights condemns the execution in the strongest terms and calls for a strong response from the international community. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, IHR director and spokesperson said: “Ruhollah Zam’s execution is a crime and the Islamic Republic authorities must be held accountable. In addition to it being a cruel and inhumane punishment, he was executed for running a news outlet, which is not a crime in any state with minimum freedom of speech standards. Kidnapping, denying him due process and an unfair trial are the other crimes of the Islamic Republic in Zam’s case.”

According to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency, political activist and the director of AmadNews Telegram channel, Ruhollah Zam, was executed at dawn on 12 December 2020. The report does not specify the exact location of the execution.

According to the report, the preliminary court has considered 13 counts of charges against Ruhollah Zam as instances of corruption on earth and sentenced him to death on that basis.

The charges in the report are: “committing crimes against the international and external security of the state, publishing widespread lies, assisting in demolition, assisting in disrupting the economic system of the state, disrupting internal and external national security, espionage for the intelligence services of a country in the region, espionage for French intelligence services from early 1397 (Spring 2018) until his arrest, co-operating with the hostile US government against the Islamic Republic in the second half of Esfand 1396 (second week of March 2018) until his arrest, assembly and collusion with intent to commit crimes against internal and external security, participating in propaganda activities against the Islamic Republic system in favour of dissident groups and organisations, participating in misleading and inciting people to war and killings in Day 1396 (December 2017-January 2018), participating in the collection of classified information with the aim of disrupting national security, participating in publishing widespread lies, insulting the sanctities of Islam, acquiring property through illegitimate means and criminal complaints made by natural and legal persons.”

Speaking about Ruhollah Zam’s execution, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “Other than Ali Khamenei and Ebrahim Raesi, all those involved in the kidnapping, pressure to force a confession, sentencing and confirmation of the death penalty, and execution of Ruhollah Zam, must be held accountable for their crimes.”

Zam’ initial hearings were held publicly and took place over the course of 6 sessions in Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Salavati. On December 8, Gholamhossein Esmaili, judiciary spokesperson, revealed that Ruhollah Zam’s death sentence had been upheld by the Supreme Court.

Ruhollah Zam, whose Telegram channel had over a million viewership at its peak, has refugee status and a residence permit in France. He was arrested during a trip to Iraq in October 2019 and subsequently transferred to Iran.

A day after the Revolutionary Guards announced news of Ruhollah Zam's arrest, the French newspaper, Le Figaro reported that Mr Zam had been lured to visit Baghdad under the pretext of meeting Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's Shiite leader in Najaf, where he was arrested.

Source: iranhr.net, Staff, December 12, 2020

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